My Mom had actually picked herself up one of the classic castles in the 80's and took her time in building it. I have no idea what happened to that castle set, and we weren't allowed to play with it. The LEGO we did end up getting was from hand-me-downs, and they didn't last long in the house, because her husband would always step on them or vacuum them up. LMAO LEGO was all but banned from the house, but I do remember getting some basic parts in a plastic container with a top that pops up..... http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?G=case7&in=S

We were also pretty poor, as my family was on welfare up until after I moved out of the house.....so cost was quite a factor as well.

We had some friends who had a TON of LEGO.....they had this ginormous play area with a huge city laid out on the floor. We would go over there a couple times a year to get our fix....but they weren't nice to their pieces and everything was pretty much useless.

Anywho, I don't have a very good childhood story concerning LEGO in that regard. I moved onto the Marines where I met a geeky guy and we quickly became good friends. We ended up sharing EVERYTHING, including our passion for kid's toys. We both started to pick up sets, and we'd build them and store them in the spare bedroom...much to his wife's dismay. Eventually he was forced to give his up, and I put mine in storage where they stayed until I fell in love with a woman who didn't want anything to do with them. I threw them away. No, seriously. Shhhhh don't tell anyone!

After we broke up (women!) I realized it was just another prime example of why I shouldn't change for anyone, but LEGO was unaffordable at this time because I was knee deep in comic books! Once I came to grips I was spending more on Comics than I was for paying rent; that went out the window. I moved deeper into video games and left the military to find it a challenge to find a job in my field. I eventually landed a job that paid hardly any money, so nearly all of my hobbies were dropped like a bad habit.

I eventually worked my way up and got into RC planes/cars. This was also too expensive, and I found myself planning crazy things I just could never clearly afford. Eventually I met my second wife, Amber (the girls' mother) and I moved into model trains for a few months....it was still a bit too expensive. I had seen a plastic modeling magazine and picked it up when looking at train stuff. I nearly fell over when I saw what these crazy people were doing with these sets! I immediately switched to that for 4-5 years where I created some amazing models which to this day floor me.

We moved to Arizona ( I grew up and lived most of my life in the San Diego, CA area), and the hobby came with me. I had another bout with RC cars and even had a ginormous monster truck....but we found out she was pregnant soon after....something we were planning for. What we weren't planning for was twins! LOL Another thing we didn't plan on was them being born 3 months premature. They had to stay in Phoenix (nearly 2 hrs away) in the NICU for nearly three months. Our jobs were up here though, so we had a long difficult road trying to juggle everything.

I hadn't touched a model in quite a while after my daughters were born, and it became painfully obvious I wouldn't be able to with my daughters around. Their severe asthma is easily triggered, and has put them in the hospital so many times it was craziness for a few years. I made the decision to ditch the toxic fumes of the glue and paint, and instead focused heavily on video games.

In fact, I started to do reviews on Myspace. I knew some of the writers on Neoseeker, and when I mentioned my reviews they took a look and asked me to write for them on a volunteer basis. One of the videogame news articles I spotted was of a man-sized DS Lite made out of LEGO some dude built for the Nintendo release in New York. It was Sean K! And little did I know it was more pint-sized than man-sized! LMFAO Again, I was floored by what people were doing with this medium! I followed the trail to MOCpages. I had bought an advent calendar that Christmas for kicks, and thinly veiled as an excuse to play with the kids.....I started fiddling around and it grew from there. That was a little over 3 years ago. Permalink